How Can You Tell If Your Water Pump Is Bad

For your machine, coolant is merely as important to keep topped off as whatsoever other fluid. It protects your engine from high heat as well every bit freezing temperatures. The water pump cycles coolant from the radiator throughout the engine, absorbing the heat and wicking it away into the atmosphere. When water pumps go bad, it causes your engine to overheat—and that leads to all sorts of trouble.

While water pumps are designed to final a vehicle's lifetime, it's entirely possible for them to fail before that mark. Every function of a water pump is critical to its part, and harm to any of of them could pb to failure. And so how do you know if your water pump is declining?

Indications of a Faulty Water Pump

Under hood

Your automobile will tell you when the water pump is out of whack. Look for these signs:

Leaking Coolant

If you detect a puddle of fluid underneath your engine, that could be a sign of a bad water pump that's leaking coolant. This happens when:

The h2o pump isn't installed correctly. Deformations, over tightening, or a faulty bearing could cause a bad installation.
The trunk is fractured. This oftentimes happens during installation and can even happen during aircraft.
The begetting seal has failed. This can be caused by rust, sediment, and other contaminants that circulate throughout the cooling organisation.
Coolant seeps through the weep hole. While some seepage occurs on new water pumps while they're breaking in, excess dripping signifies contaminated fluid and impending water pump failure.
There's a leak somewhere in the cooling system other than the water pump. If you're losing coolant for a reason non mentioned above, you lot likely take a leak in your radiator or one of the hoses in your system.

Note that if a leak isn't taken care of, your engine is almost guaranteed to overheat if the water pump isn't replaced immediately.

Grinding Noises

Grinding noises can exist an indicator of a few dissimilar water pump failures, including:

A worn begetting seal. Leaking coolant will slowly dissolve the protective layer surrounding the seal, causing it to overheat and eventually collapse. A collapsed bearing Volition straight effect your engine.
A fractured body. This could be corrosion caused past coolant deterioration.
A loose water pump caster. This is usually the sign of a bearing going bad.

Photo credit: Pete via flickr
A lacking impeller coming loose from its shaft. The impeller'southward task is to distribute coolant throughout the arrangement, and if it were to detach, overheating would occur.

Engine Overheating

A failing water pump volition cause your engine to oestrus up, and that's not a expert thing. To prevent catastrophic engine failure, look for these signs of an overheated engine due to water pump failure, including:

- - A fluctuating temperature gauge. Normally, your vehicle'southward temperature gauge should remain steady, settling somewhere between cold and hot. If coolant isn't getting pumped through the system, the impeller has nigh probable malfunctioned. This causes the temperature gauge needle to go upwardly.
  - A check engine light. Overheated coolant will trigger the dreaded check engine low-cal, which means it'south time to pull over immediately.

Coolant

- - Muddied, clouded coolant. If the coolant in your system has becomes contaminated, that can impact the system's ability to keep your engine cool. Look for signs of exceptionally dirty coolant. Coolant is typically a bright color (coolant cover varies from i vehicle to some other) and shouldn't have whatsoever oil or droppings in it.

Buying a New Water Pump

A faulty h2o pump has the power to crusade consummate engine failure. That reason solitary should be enough to only buy a water pump from a premium OEM-quality manufacturer.

At GMB, nosotros've been manufacturing loftier-quality water pumps for decades. Our clients include various automakers, well-known national parts chains, and premium after-market brands. When we manufacture water pumps, we focus on the individual components and so the whole part meets our high standards. Lastly, we are sure to match the OEM specifications for every single h2o pump we make. That mode, you go the perfect fit every time.

Learn more about GMB h2o pumps here!